HUD has rejected the City of Houston’s fair housing plan known as the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing (AI). The City is required to produce and carry out a plan to “affirmatively further fair housing” as a condition for receiving federal funds for housing and community development. In a letter we obtained under the [...]
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Dallas fumbles in the absence of a housing policy
January 18, 2012
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Housing segregation is a problem most Texas communities struggle with. Crippled by a lack of political courage and leadership no city seems to struggle more than Dallas, often with serious consequences. The Dallas Morning News (DMN) ran a front page story Sunday about a dispute between the backers of two proposed Low Income Housing Tax [...]
Read more DMN editorial says paper will push housing in 2012
January 8, 2012
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An editorial in today’s Dallas Morning News says the paper will editorially push two housing issues on the editorial pages in 2012. A monitoring of nonprofits to replace dilapidated housing and revitalize neighborhoods. A look into tax-credit housing — how the process goes awry and the impact that such housing concentration has in southern Dallas. [...]
Read more Couple lives in tent waiting for Ike-damaged home’s repair | khou.com Houston
September 17, 2011
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Just when you think you have seen the worst government can do to Hurricane Ike victims along comes this story. This is funded with the $3.1 billion State administered disaster recovery program. Is no one monitoring how local recipients of the funds treat the people who are being “assisted” under the program? (Watch the video) [...]
Read more On 3rd anniversary 200 tell Houston City Council reforms are needed in Hurricane Ike recovery program
September 14, 2011
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The following testimony was presented before the Houston City Council on the third anniversary of Hurricane Ike, September 13, 2011.
Read more Protesters say city slow to repair Ike-damaged houses – Houston Chronicle
September 13, 2011
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Bearing photos of homes that still have blue tarps on the roofs, more than 100 protesters held a rally at City Hall on the third anniversary of Hurricane Ike on Tuesday and pleaded with the City Council to accelerate its repair program. “I’m tired of the city telling me to be patient,” said Elvis Malveaux at [...]
Read more Senior’s city-built home lacked insulation – Houston Chronicle
September 13, 2011
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After months of delay in getting its housing repair program under way, Houston’s housing department was eager last month to show off the first batch of new homes built to replace those damaged by Hurricane Ike. But one of the homes wasn’t quite finished when it was turned over to the homeowner. The contractor neglected to [...]
Read more Three Years After Ike, Many Still Await Assistance | Public News Service
September 13, 2011
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AUSTIN, Texas – Today marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Ike, and many low-income Texans, particularly in the Houston area, have yet to recover from its devastation. Hundreds of affected residents plan to converge on City Hall today, carrying symbolic blue tarps and photos of unrepaired homes, charging that the city has neglected them while [...]
Read more September 13, 2011 is the three year anniversary of Hurricane Ike
September 12, 2011
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Please take a few moments to consider the plight of the tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Texans who are still waiting for help to repair their homes. Some tell their stories in this video produced a year ago for TxLIHIS by former staffer Melissa Cha. The people in the video are still waiting [...]
Read more Houston experiences largest growth of poor population in American metros
August 5, 2011
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Other central cities that saw populations of the poor soar between 2000 and 2007 included Dallas, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Columbus, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso. These are the observations of Rolf Pendall, PhD, Director of the Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, writing in the blog MetroTrends. The biggest single [...]
Read more When the overwhelming majority of good people don’t confront prejudice, an entire community suffers
August 2, 2011
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I received a phone call yesterday from Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski about my June 25 blog post, ”The racism of New Berlin is growing in Galveston.” The mayor told me someone contacted him who thought I was accusing everyone in Galveston of being racist. All I could say to the mayor was, “Did the person who called you [...]
Read more Colonia improvements still leave the poor in deplorable housing
July 31, 2011
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Colonias in the Rio Grande Valley are home to some of the poorest Texans. Governmental efforts to improve living conditions in colonias has mostly been limited to two programs: providing water, sewer and roads to more than half of the colonias and forcing land developers to adhere to “model subdivision rules.” Model subdivision rules require [...]
Read more Thousands still recovering from Hurricane Ike | abc13.com
July 31, 2011
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The community organization TOP held an information fair for low-income Houston homeowners Saturday to help them find out when they can expect to see home repairs through the City of Houston’s long-delayed CDBG disaster recovery program. The following is from a TV news report. It’s been almost three years since Hurricane Ike hit, and thousands [...]
Read more It’s finally time to get rid of those post-Ike blue tarps | Houston Chronicle
July 30, 2011
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September 13, 2011, will mark the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Ike making landfall along the upper Texas coast. Residents of the Houston-Galveston area remember all too well the death and destruction Ike left in its path. This community has made remarkable progress over three years recovering from Ike. Yet for too many Houstonians, particularly those [...]
Read more Colonia Resident Worried About Tropical Storm Don
July 30, 2011
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Channel Five in McAllen ran a story tonight on a resident of a colonia in Cameron County who was dreading the approach of Tropical Storm Don. The subject of the story lives in Green Valley Farms (not Green Acres as the story claims). It is a colonia that has attracted our attention of late because [...]
Read more HUD’s Ron Sims discusses something Austin officials will not — homeownership and race
July 21, 2011
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For a years I worked with State Representative Eddie Rodriguez (Austin) to help him devise a way to let lower-income families of color maintain a presence in East Austin in the light of escalating property values and taxes. So far the effort has not succeeded. A key problem has been the opposition of a few African-American [...]
Read more Dallas pregnant woman reportedly trampled, others injured in rush for housing vouchers
July 21, 2011
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Bo McCarver’s housing news clips posted on this blog this week has a story from the AP headlined, “Early morning stampede for hard-to-get vouchers.” It is a sad commentary about the unmet need for affordable housing on the part of people with low-incomes and the way poor people are treated by some public housing authorities. [...]
Read more Austin case study: Postdisaster housing policy and low-income survivors
July 19, 2011
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Several very smart people from the University of Texas and myself just had a paper published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research entitled, “Looking for Home after Katrina: Postdisaster Housing Policy and Low-Income Survivors”. The authors are TxLIHIS Board member and UT Community and Regional Planning Department faculty member Dr. Elizabeth J. Mueller, [...]
Read more What kind of city do we want Austin to be? | Paup in Austin American-Statesman
July 18, 2011
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From the Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, July 17, 2011 Now that he’s been told to make way for redevelopment efforts on East Riverside Drive, PTA President Arturo Garcia has one big question: Where will he and the parents of 109 other students at Sanchez Elementary find another affordable apartment complex close to their children’s school? He [...]
Read more Where Texas border housing and community development issues stand after the legislative session
July 17, 2011
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Earlier this week I spoke to the National Association of Latino Community Asset Builders about developments during the last session of the Texas Legislature that impacted colonias. These are my prepared remarks. The situation faced by those of us who work on affordable housing and community development issues along the Texas Mexico border can be [...]
Read more HUD pointedly directs Galveston to rebuild its public housing
July 15, 2011
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In an unusual joint letter to Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, three top HUD leaders told Galveston to move forward to rebuild public housing destroyed by Hurricane Ike or face the loss of federal funding. The July 13, 2011 letter was signed by Mercedes Marquez, HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary for [...]
Read more TX Tribune story may lead to a misdiagnosis of colonia conditions and health problems
July 10, 2011
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The second of a two-part Texas Tribune story on the colonias that ran today on the Tribune’s website and in the New York Times has me worried. Reporter Emily Ramshaw illuminates the terrible health problems faced by colonia residents. Unfortunately, the story also is likely to leave many in the dark. The story does not make [...]
Read more CNN says, “Impoverished border town grows from shacks into community” – not exactly
July 9, 2011
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Whoever at CNN wrote the headline above does not understand what happened in the Las Lomas colonia. The headline says, “Impoverished border town grows from shacks into community”. The headline should say, “Impoverished border community grows from shacks to a town”. The transformation of Las Lomas took place because it always was a strong community. That community [...]
Read more Wait gets longer for public housing in Galveston | Houston Chronicle
July 2, 2011
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There is an interesting and sobering story about rebuilding Galveston public housing that ran in today’s Houston Chronicle. The story is exerted below. The Galveston Housing Authority (GHA) needs to address the fears of the community that rebuilding will take too long — in fact it already has taken too long. The GHA board of [...]
Read more The racism of New Berlin is growing in Galveston
June 25, 2011
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We noted yesterday the United States Department of Justice brought suit alleging the City of New Berlin, Wisconsin had violated the Fair Housing Act by denying a developer permission to build a mixed senior, family development financed with Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). I just read the Justice Department’s compliant in the case. The same [...]
Read more I woke last night to the sound of thunder
June 23, 2011
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As other parts of the state literally burn and the Governor calls on Texans to implement a critical part of his disaster response program, prayer for rain, here in the Valley rain clouds are rolling in. As I’ve been writing this post, the lights in my downtown Edinburg office have gone out, interrupting my work. The city streets flood terribly with even ordinary rainstorms like today’s, but colonias have it much worse.
Read more State Rep Riddle says she wants no low-income housing in her district
June 14, 2011
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To appreciate the fair housing problem in Texas just watch this video. Back in February, at a hearing on the budget for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA), Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle, House District 150, which comprises much of northwest Harris County (51% Anglo. per capita income $25,272, 28% renters), asked Mike [...]
Read more Galveston housing authority director resigns
June 13, 2011
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The Galveston County Daily News is reporting Galveston Housing Authority Executive Director Harish Krishnarao resigned effective immediately during an executive session of the housing authority’s board of directors. Krishnarao has come under criticism for the slow process of the planning process for rebuilding 569 public housing units demolished by the housing authority after Hurricane Ike. [...]
Read more Video of Houston Disaster Recovery Town Hall
June 2, 2011
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Last week we highlighted a town hall on Disaster Single Family Home Repair in Houston, hosted by the Texas Organizing Project. Mayor Annise Parker spoke at that event, as did Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. We’ve put video of their comments up at Youtube so you can watch them from the comforts of your own chair: [...]
Read more Hurricane Disaster Spending–an opportunity to repair homes *and* create jobs in affected communities
May 27, 2011
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Texas Low Income Housing Information Service is working with residents in Galveston, Houston and the Valley to make sure that under-employed and unemployed Texans get as much work as possible from the Hurricane Recovery dollars. Section 3 says that when HUD dollars are spent on housing or infrastructure projects and low-income people in the affected [...]
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